WATER
1.1 Billion people worldwide lack
access to clean water.
1.8 million children die each year
from waterborne diseases – one
every 10 seconds.
5.3 billion people, two thirds of the
world’s population, will suffer from
water shortages by 2050.
The average American family uses
293 gallons of water per day; the
average African family uses 5
gallons.
In 1966, the UN International Covenant on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights established
the right to water as a human right in Articles 11
and 12.
In 1999, the Dublin Conference on Water and the
Environment established four principles that have
subsequently guided world water policy: (1) fresh
water is a finite and vulnerable resource; (2) water
development and management should be based
on a participatory approach, involving users,
planners and policy-makers at all levels; (3) women
play a central role in the provision, management,
and safeguarding of water; (4) water has an
economic value in all its competing uses and should
be recognized as an economic good.
Global
consumption of
water doubles
every 20 years –
more than twice
the rate of
human
population
growth.
In 2001, 800 delegates from 35 countries attended
the Water for Peace and Nature Summit in
Vancouver. They endorsed and signed the “Treaty
Initiative to Share and Protect the Global Water
Commons,” which says: “the intrinsic value of the
Earth’s fresh water precedes its utility and
commercial value,” and that “the Earth’s water
belongs to the Earth and all species, and therefore
must not be treated as a private commodity to be
bought, sold, and traded for profit.”
While it is obviously
true that we need
water for basic
survival, continuing
attempts to
categorize water as
a “need,” rather
than a “right” have
been legal attempts
to justify
privatization – that
is to say, companies
claim that their
mission is to fulfill
this basic “need.”
WATER
WHAT THE
CHURCHES
CAN DO
• Church leaders, lay and ordained,
must speak directly to
government representatives at
all levels – local, regional, and
national – about the right to safe,
clean water and preserving that
right as a basic public trust.
• Use the water in your baptismal
font both as a sacrament and as
an educational tool linking
spiritual teachings, environmental
stewardship practices, and basic
human rights.
• Invite women in your
congregation to share their
experiences about the
significance of water, its uses,
and the issues surrounding it.
• Visit nearby wells, streams, and
rivers with your congregations
and communities to examine and
bless the water.
• Implement water conservation
strategies in your parish church
or other places of worship.
BIBLE STUDY – THE
RIGHT TO WATER:
THE RIGHT TO LIFE
INTRODUCTION
The Bible talks repeatedly about water. The Spirit
hovered over water at the beginning of creation.
Water is a common theme in stories about
sustaining life and communities. There are many
accounts of women collecting water, including
the Samaritan woman who meets Jesus at the
well. In the New Testament, water becomes
symbolic of new life in Christ.
In this story from Genesis 21, God provides water
to save the lives of Hagar and her son, Ishmael.
Hagar, a slave and a foreigner and the mother of
Abraham’s son, was rejected and sent out into
the desert with her child.
GENESIS 21: 14-19 – GOD PROVIDES
WATER TO SAVE LIFE
Thanksgiving for Earth’s Bounty
Early the next morning Abraham took some food
and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He
set them on her shoulders and then sent her off
with the boy. She went on her way and wandered
in the Desert of Beersheba.
When the water in the skin was gone, she put the
boy under one of the bushes. Then she went off
and sat down about a bowshot away, for she
thought, “I cannot watch the boy die.” And as
she sat there, she began to sob.
God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God
called to Hagar from heaven and said to her,
“What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid;
God has heard the boy crying as he lies there.
Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I
will make him into a great nation.”
Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well
of water. So she went and filled the skin with
water and gave the boy a drink.
WATER
PRAYER
• What do we learn from this story about God’s
care for the most vulnerable?
Loving Father,
In our own times:
We rejoice in your gift of water in creation.
We give thanks for the resource of clean,
safe water that sustains life. We ask your
forgiveness where we have misused water
supplies or not cared about others. We pray
for places where people and creation suffer
from lack of water. Please guide humanity
to come together to preserve and share
water for the life and flourishing of all.
• What do we recognise from this story in our world
today? What is our prayer?
In Jesus’ holy name we pray. Amen.
DISCUSSION
You may wish to open in prayer. Read the Bible
passage twice and then discuss these questions:
In biblical times:
• What do you think this passage is about? Please
retell it in your own words.
• What factors made Hagar so powerless in this
situation?
• God showed particular concern for the most
vulnerable: a woman and a child who were
enslaved foreigners. Who are the most vulnerable
in our communities and world? How should the
Church respond?
• Discuss some specific situations and consider
why people are denied the right to enough water
and clean water.
• “Let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a
never-failing stream!” (Amos 5:24) What does
justice mean in relation to water access in our
world? Do we help or harm others in our personal
use of water?
• What practical actions can we commit to take at
individual and community level to change our
own practices and to advocate for the right to
water?
• What did Hagar experience when her son was
dying of thirst?
FURTHER PASSAGES FOR READING
• How did God respond to the suffering of this
foreign female slave?
Amos 5: 12-13, 24
John 4: 5-15
REFERENCES AND OTHER BIBLE
STUDIES
Bible text cited from New International
Version 1979
Ecumenical Water Network:
http://www.oikoumene.org/en/activities/
ewn-home
www.tearfund.org/en/what_we_do_and_wher
e/issues/water_and_sanitation
www.wateraid.org/uk
www.arocha.org
WATER